See where homes are selling fastest in Chicago

Chris and Elisabeth Hajduk knew homes were selling fast in Ukrainian Village, but they didn't realize how fast until they put their Superior Street condo on the market in mid-April for $349,500.

Just nine days later the two-bedroom unit was under contract, and the Hajduks were looking for a temporary rental they could live in while house hunting.

“We were a little shocked,” Chris Hadjuk said. “We thought a month would be good.” By the time their sale closed, at $335,000 on June 6, the couple and their child had moved into an Oak Park sublet and were looking for a new home in the near west suburbs.

The Hajduks' speedy sale was even ahead of the pack in their neighborhood, the fastest-selling part of the city for condominiums and townhouses. Ukrainian Village is in the area the city designates as West Town, where condominiums and townhouses have been selling in an average of 65 days this year, according to data from the Chicago Association of Realtors and Midwest Real Estate Data LLC.

From Jan. 1 to April 30, condominiums in the city sold in an average of 92 days, 21 percent faster than they moved in 2013, according to the data. Single-family homes were selling in an average of 110 days, or almost 15 percent faster than 2013's pace. (Data for individual suburbs is not available.)

In some neighborhoods, the pace was considerably faster.

The briskest single-family sales were in North Park on the Northwest Side, where the average time a house spent on the market was 46 days, or less than half the 96 days they were taking to sell a year earlier.

The acceleration caught Tina Miritello of Century 21 Marino off guard. She ordinarily focuses on Morton Grove, but a client asked her to sell his mother's North Park bungalow.

“I'd heard about what was going on in the city,” Ms. Miritello said, “but wow.”

She put the two-bedroom Kimball Avenue bungalow on the market for $239,000 on March 14, took in multiple offers and backup offers and had it under contract March 17. The sale closed May 22 at $235,000, according to the listing sheet Ms. Miritello filed with MRED.

“It was crazy how fast that one went,” she said.

Mario Greco, the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices KoenigRubloff Realty Group agent who represented the Hajduks, said a low inventory in relatively affordable neighborhoods like theirs and North Park is causing the pace of sales to pick up.

“Supply is so small that it's making buyers less picky,” Mr. Greco said. “The specter of somebody else getting the house they like is causing them to move fast.”

MUCH SLOWER IN SOME AREAS

Homes aren't selling quickly everywhere. In many neighborhoods where homes are slowest to sell, there is still a heavy burden of distressed properties. Among neighborhoods where distress is low, the slowest-selling houses are in the Near North, with an average of 179 days; Edison Park, 149 days, and Beverly, 119 days. For condos and townhomes, it's Hyde Park at 166 days, Bridgeport at 128 and West Ridge at 116.

Still, in every one of those neighborhoods, market times fell in the first four months of 2014 from a year earlier.

In some of the city's hottest neighborhoods today, as recently as two years ago it often took more than 200 days to sell a house. But agents have gotten used to watching homes sell at warp speed.

Melinda Jakovich, also of Berkshire, sold a 5,300-square-foot loft in West Town with a sleek contemporary staircase made of green ash wood and steel and four outdoor spaces, including a roof deck with its own shower. She listed it for $1.95 million Feb. 3 and 50 days later had it under contract at full price.

That would have been awesome a few years ago, but now, Ms. Jakovich isn't so impressed.

“We could have sold it even faster,” Ms. Jakovich said, “but February was so cold that nobody was looking” at homes.

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